Alone and Empty
by tinylexie
Summary: Darken Rahl may have always been surrounded by people in both life and death, but he's always been isolated from humanity as well.


I'm angry.

The soldier before me trembles with fear.

I slice the wrist of the solider who failed me.

My journey book has ink.

I slice the queen's arm.

More ink for my journey book.

I'm banging the pathetic soldier's face

Where once the Boxes of Orden awaited me.

He's bloody; he's dead.

I snap the neck of a greedy man.

I'm angry; blood flows; Death pays a visit.

Yet I find no satisfaction in any of this.

I might have some temporary pleasure,

But then I feel empty inside.

What good has losing my temper done me?

I'm still being hunted by the Seeker.

My death is still desire.

I'm still hated, despised with a passion, unloved.

My Mord-Sith have been trained

To give both pleasure and pain.

I'm feeling kind of empty right now.

Perhaps one of my Mord-Sith can help me with that.

The moment between us is one of ecstasy;

I won't deny that,

But I soon feel empty once more.

The pleasures of the flesh

Aren't enough to satisfy me.

I'm searching for something

To fill the emptiness inside me,

But I have yet to find that something.

Perhaps it doesn't exist.

Does everyone else feel as empty as I do?

I give commands,

And my soldiers and subjects obey them;

Yet I'm still not satisfied.

As the Lord Rahl, I should enjoy being obeyed,

But that enjoyment is only temporary, quickly fading.

I'm surrounded by idiots.

I have conversations with Egremont;

But we never speak of anything enlightening,

And the conversations

Never make me feel any better.

I would have felt no different

If none of those conversations

Had ever taken place,

Yet it's still nice to hear

Another voice besides my own,

Even if that voice is rarely helpful.

Egremont reminds me of all that I have accomplished,

Even without all three Boxes of Orden.

That definitely cheered me up.

Was I looking that depressed?

I was cheered up for a moment,

But only for a moment.

I still don't have all three boxes,

And I'm still being hunted by the Seeker.

My death is still desire.

I'm still hated, despised with a passion, unloved.

I need the power that Orden can provide me.

The Seeker can't hurt me if I can control him.

As soon as I am the Master of Orden,

No one will be able to hurt me anymore.

There can be peace then, and no more war and suffering.

I will be forever protected,

And I can protect everyone under my control.

Surely that would make me happy.

Surely that would fill the emptiness inside me.

But the boxes would have never been necessary

If not for the prophecy saying that one day

The Seeker would kill me.

Am I supposed to just stand there

And wait for my own baby brother

To run me through with the Sword of Truth?

No doubt that would make him happy,

But I seriously doubt that would make me happy.

I want to be happy,

But I just don't know how to find that happiness.

I'm searching for something

To fill the emptiness inside me,

But I have yet to find that something.

Perhaps it doesn't exist.

Does everyone else feel as empty as I do?

"And what would you know of love,

Except that you will never feel it from anyone?"

Love, that's what I've been searching for.

I have heard of the word "love."

It's quite an interesting concept.

I have always thought of love as a weakness,

But that has to be

What I have been searching for my whole life.

The Mother Confessor's words

Would not have wounded me so

If love wasn't my true desire.

I guess what I have with my Mord-Sith isn't love.

No, I know what it is, it's lust;

And even I know that there's a difference

Between lust and love.

My baby sister thinks that I'm the great hero.

She's practically worshipping me.

What a strange but fulfilling feeling.

Does Jennsen love me?

Does Jennsen actually love me?

No, Darken Rahl, keep your mind on the real goal:

The Boxes of Orden.

Ultimate power is what you want.

Remember?

But why did I feel so wounded

When Jennsen betrayed me

And returned to my baby brother's side?

It's because she gave the boxes to Richard.

Yeah, that's why I felt so wounded.

Jennsen gave the power I desired to Richard.

That has to be it.

Agony, great, overwhelming agony.

I knew that using the Sword of Truth

On the Boxes of Orden

Would open a veil to the underworld,

But I never expected that it would be so painful.

Well, the pain is good for something;

It keeps me from thinking about the emptiness inside me.

How can someone possible think about being empty

When they're too busy screaming in agony?

But even pain does not satisfy me for long

Because eventually it fades as well,

As does everything else in my life.

I hear the Keeper's voice.

Am I dreaming.

My master often comes to me in my sleep.

No, I'm the underworld.

I know that I am.

I've been here before.

Wait a minute, I'm dead.

I've failed to obtain the power that I desired.

I've failed the Keeper.

I can no longer deliver him any souls

If I'm dead.

That was our agreement:

Souls for power.

I've failed to fill the emptiness inside me.

The Keeper told me that I have succeed.

What?

Clearly I've never succeed in anything.

If I had ever been successful in life,

I wouldn't be feeling so empty right now.

I guess people are right when they say

That dying doesn't change someone.

The Keeper wanted me to die

At my own baby brother's hands.

The Keeper has deceived me;

The Keeper has betrayed me,

Yet I must play the part of the faithful servant.

As long as I'm in the underworld,

I belong to the Keeper,

But I will one day have my vengeance.

Death is merely a temporary inconvenience,

Just like everything while I was alive was merely temporary.

Deceiving the Keeper is easier

Then I thought it would be,

Even though it is getting kind of boring.

Another person dies.

"Do you want to be a baneling?"

They either say "yes" or "no,"

And I move on from there.

I need information.

The Keeper has granted me some powers.

I'll just torture the information

Out of the dead soul.

The power and the sounds of screaming

Are definitely thrilling to me,

But only for a temporary amount of time.

At the end of the day, I'm still dead,

Even though I suppose Death

Isn't really such a bad thing.

It's about the same as Life actually.

I really feel no different dead

Than I felt when I was alive.

So I was betrayed by the Keeper.

It's definitely not the first time

I was ever betrayed.

My own father betrayed me

When he made sure the Seeker would be born,

The Seeker that prophecy said

Would one day kill me.

I killed my father,

But it didn't really make me feel any better.

The Seeker was still living.

I ordered the Seeker's death,

But I still didn't feel any better.

All rulers have many enemies.

It's impossible to eliminate them all.

Everything would have really been so much easier

If I had the power of the Boxes of Orden,

But would "easy" fulfill me?

Peace is a nice concept;

But it also sounds kind of boring,

And when I'm bored

I'm unable to think of anything else

Except the emptiness inside me.

Power and peace are nice goals to have in life,

But I need something else as well.

Love perhaps, even though I know that's silly.

There's no way that love can fulfill me.

There's no way that love can make me

No longer feel so empty inside.

Forget love, Darken Rahl,

You're only being an idiot now.

Love solves nothing.

Look what happened

When you expected love from Jennsen.

She betrayed you, Darken Rahl.

Look what happened

When you expected love from your Mord-Sith.

One of your best Mord-Sith, Cara,

Betrayed you as well, Darken Rahl.

Love does nothing but cause more pain,

And pain is not enough to be fulfilling

Because pain, like everything else,

Is only temporary.

"Hello, Father."

My father is dead now, by the way.

He was just pretending to be dead

Until this moment.

I should be happy.

I can finally have my vengeance

Against the man

Who first placed the Seeker before me.

I can finally have my vengeance

Against the man

Who loved the Seeker more than me,

But I now realize

That vengeance, like everything else,

Is only temporary.

I might have been happy for a moment

To hear my father's screams of agony,

But a moment never lasts forever.

Everything in both life and death

Quickly fades away.

When you really think about it,

There's no purpose in anything happening

Because nothing is permanently fulfilling.

Nothing can permanently fill the emptiness inside me.

I'm tired of just "temporary."

What does one have to do to find "permanency?"

The time has come for me to betray the Keeper.

"I want to live again."

I should be happy that I'm alive again;

I should be happy that the Keeper is defeated,

But I'm not.

So I have a good apple now and then.

So I have some pleasures of the flesh now and then.

Quickly afterwards,

I feel miserable, alone, and empty again.

Nothing has changed.

What was I thinking?

Why did I want to live again so badly?

Alive or dead, I'm still empty inside.


End file.
